One issue with mobile and portable wireless communication devices, such as user equipment (UE), is power savings since most of these devices utilize a battery that has a limited energy storage capacity. Some mobile devices may enter an idle mode to save energy and may enter an active mode for communications to take place. During idle mode or active mode, a mobile device may enter a discontinuous reception (DRX) mode in order to reduce power consumption. During idle mode DRX, the mobile station may listen to a control channel only during certain intervals to reduce power consumption.
Conventionally, DRX mode activation is triggered by when an inactivity timer expires. This conventional technique for DRX mode triggering does not take into account traffic activity or device status resulting in less-than optimum power savings.
Thus, there are general needs for UE and methods for DRX mode triggering that can achieve improved power savings over conventional techniques.